Level 1

12 points

SD Card Slot Disappears After Sleep (Gone Until Reboot)

I love my new Macbook Air 2013. Its speedy Core i7 and lightening-fast 256GB SSD make for quite a wonderful experience in Windows 7, too. But I have a problem that is proving to be quite the frustrating little niggle, and I just can't sort it out. So I've turned to you guys for help.

Here's the thing: the SD Card (the slot, the device, the card, the folder, the drive, everything) just vanishes after the MBA wakes up from sleep. I've tried it with various cards with different filesystems (FAT32, NTFS, EXFAT) and capacities (32GB, 64GB, 128GB) -- always the same. I've reinstalled Windows 7 Pro x64 multiple times using up-to-date boot camp assistant and Apple Support Drivers.

The card works fine. Until, of course, the computer goes to sleep. When it awakens, the card is gone -- even from the device manager -- until the computer is rebooted. That's right, plugging the card (or any other card) into and out of the slot doens't fix it. Neither does resetting the NVRAM or SMC. Neither does adding an event to the Task Scheduler to disable the device prior to sleep and re-enable it on wake (it doesn't re-enable, the entire device vanishes).

Here are some more details:

- Putting the card in for the first time while the computer is asleep is okay -- the card appears when the computer is awakened. But putting it back to sleep afterwards causes the same behavior -- the card and reader disappear until reboot.

- The computer can go to sleep and wake up many times without a card inserted without the device disappearing. I can put a card in and have it recognized propertly after any number of card-free sleep-wake cycles. But the moment the computer sleeps with card inside, the reader disappears until next reboot, no matter what.

- This behavior does not occur in OSX to my knowledge (although OSX handles both mounting AND sleep states VERY differently than Windows, so I can't directly compare).

I have tried everything short of scripting a reset of the root USB hub (a highly unrecommended procedure that can disable the keyboard/mouse/etc). I've even tried new USB hub drivers (intel 8.10) to no avail.

Anyone have the same issue? Does this work for you? Does anyone have a copy of older SD card drivers (maybe the latest ones are screwy?). Thanks

MacBook Air (13-inch Mid 2013), Windows 7, OSX 10.8.5 too.

Posted on Oct 3, 2013 8:08 PM

Top-ranking reply

Hawk521

Level 1

18 points

Posted on Oct 1, 2017 6:52 AM

There is no solution. Only work-arounds.

To the best of my knowledge, if you only use the Mac OS you will not see this disappearing SD Slot problem. BUT - if you utilize Bootcamp to run Windows (any version) and you allow your computer to go into "SLEEP MODE" while using Windows (when you close the lid or just let it time out) - then you WILL encounter this problem.

When s Mac running Windows in Bootcamp goes into sleep mode, the Bootcamp SD Slot goes dormant and cannot be waked up without a power off/on of the machine - which will restore the SD Slot. And for most folks a simple restart of Windows will restore the SD Slot, probably because it goes through the full boot-up process.

Workarounds;

You can utilize the Hybernate mode (instead of SLEEP mode) and never see the problem. The difference involves the fact that Hybernate involves a full power off of the computer whereas the SLEEP mode leaves the power on (albeit in a low power state.) Or you can use a full SHUTDOWN in lieu of SLEEP mode. In this case the SD Slot is fully functional upon reboot of the WIndows OS.

In my case I had always preferred to use the SLEEP mode because it is quicker to wake up. But once I started using the SD Card slot extensively while in Windows, I had to change to either SHUTDOWN or HYBERNATE to ensure that the SD card would be functional when I needed it.

This problem has existed for over 3 years. Apple has seemingly acknowledged it as a problem on occassion, but has yet to ever bother with a fix. I suspect it relates to the fact that this problem only affects users who run Windows on their Macs. And why would Apple bother to fix something that they disapprove of in the first place. <sarcasm detected!>

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148 replies

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

Jul 4, 2017 3:44 PM in response to towoode

The Broadcom driver is a SCSI driver, unlike the Apple version. It has been stable from day 1. Hibernate probes hardware and rebuilds the hardware tables again. There is a downside to Hibernate, which can result in duplicate instances of the same hardware, so it would be wise to test and verify.

Hawk521

Level 1

18 points

Jul 5, 2017 5:03 PM in response to towoode

My 2013 (6,2) MacBook Air 8gb, 500gb SSD behaves this way: My SD card does get restored properly from 'hibernate' but never from 'sleep' mode. And since I have to hit the power button to wake it up from hibernate I find that simply having it do a shutdown works for me. It takes about 10 seconds to wake from hibernate. It takes about 15 seconds to boot from a shutdown.

I would rather be using Sleep mode if it worked. It wakes the computer in around 5-7 seconds - albeit without the SD drive. In fact I used Sleep mode routinely when I wasn't as dependent on the contents of my 512gb SD card. But these days the SD card is fundamental to many of the tasks I perform.

It would be splendid if Apple could evolve an SD driver for Bootcamp that would find, wake and restore the SD card during wake-up from sleep mode. This would seem doable - but only if someone at Apple cares about those of us who want or need to run Windows on our Apple hardware. Personally, I wouldn't even own this MacBook Air if not for the Bootcamp capability. I typically only boot to Siera OS so I can backup (using WinClone) my Windows 10 partition image.

I would LOVE to be proved wrong but Apple would have to be in a fairly benevolent mode to fix this for us.

Hawfinch

Level 1

19 points

Jul 9, 2017 1:47 AM in response to Gabe-A

I have this problem intermittently on my MacBook Pro (2015). The SD card will sometimes be gone on wake from sleep, with a notification that it wasn't properly unmounted. I can get it to reappear by restarting.

I only use the SD card for Time Machine backups, and one thing I've noticed is that if I remember to check that there's no TM activity before sleeping, the SD card returns on wake. It's only when I forget to check that I sometimes get the problem.

I'm wondering, therefore, if the disappearance of the SD card is caused by read/write activity being interrupted by sleep. If so, disabling background activity on the SD card (Spotlight indexing, backups, virus checks, etc) might be a fix.

Hawfinch

Level 1

19 points

Jul 9, 2017 5:13 AM in response to Goody64

You can disable Spotlight's background indexing for a specific volume using the Privacy tab in System Prefs -> Spotlight.

A volume can be excluded from TM backups using the Options settings in System Prefs -> Time Machine.

If you have other backup, antivirus or diagnostic software that may be running on the SD card in the background, you'll need to configure that, too, in order to test the theory.

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

Feb 20, 2015 9:37 AM in response to lom1980

1. Can you repair the BC drivers - Boot Camp: Install or repair Boot Camp drivers?

2. What version of the drivers do you currently have installed?

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

Feb 21, 2015 10:29 AM in response to lom1980

Can you try an SMC reset - Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC) - Apple Support ?

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

Mar 5, 2015 6:14 PM in response to jerry824

Do you have a Bug ID?

This is one that i can find - Mac computers: Don't change SD cards while computer sleeps - Apple Support.

Gabe-A Author

Level 1

12 points

Oct 11, 2013 9:32 AM in response to Gabe-A

Bump. Anybody?

Am I the only one whose SD cards disappear after waking from sleep in boot camp?

GMM

Level 1

0 points

Feb 10, 2014 7:15 AM in response to Gabe-A

I'm having the same issue - reboot is the only way I can bring the SD slot back. I've tried changing the driver from "Apple SD Card" to the native "USB Mass Storage" devive, but no change.

Mar 17, 2014 9:24 AM in response to hreede

hreede --

I am not sure I understand your grammar here. Do you mean that hibernation works and sleep does not?

Jun 17, 2014 4:37 PM in response to Gabe-A

I am experiencing this as well on a late 2013 rMBP. Going into and out of hibernation seems to recover it, as some have found out for themselves.

Sep 13, 2014 11:18 PM in response to lordvampire

Yeah, I have the same problem with my brand new MBP!!! Apple really needs to fix this!!!!!

lom1980

Level 1

0 points

Feb 15, 2015 11:41 AM in response to Far_Dar

Same here... unfortunately i cannot find any entries within the eventlog to get a hint how to solve this issue...

lom1980

Level 1

0 points

Feb 20, 2015 8:51 AM in response to Loner T

Unfortunately the error remains at my MBA (mid 2014) after trying another SDCard (tried Sandisk and Transcend)...

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

Feb 22, 2015 5:20 AM in response to lom1980

"False" is the correct setting. It is not being honored by the Windows Kernel. Does the OS X side behave properly?

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SD Card Slot Disappears After Sleep (Gone Until Reboot)